Who is Satan?

WHO IS SATAN?

One of the most misunderstood individuals in all of history is Satan. He who seeks our destruction and knows how to make us miserable, never teaches us how to be happy. Ask just about anyone to describe him and you’ll come up with as many different answers as the number of people you ask. This is all good news for him because if he can confuse you, that gives him extra power over you.

My goal here is to clear up many of the misconceptions about who or what he is and give you some ideas of how to keep him from having more influence in your life.

First of all, here are a few things regarding what Satan is not. Satan is not a beast with horns, fiery eyes or teeth like a saber tooth tiger. He’s not green, red or a host of other colors. He isn’t a snake, serpent, Dragon nor does he have wings. If you could see them today, he would look like any other human being.

And apparently, Satan is very good looking.

Where’d he come from? This is very important for you to understand. For some reason, most people do not know what I’m about to tell you. You may think this completely strange or even weird because it will probably be new to you, but it is the truth.

In Isaiah chapter 14 there is a detailed description about Satan describing how he had fallen from heaven and was a son of the morning. What does “son of the morning” mean? It means someone who had been chosen to do great things and was one of the early ones in God’s plan. But he rebelled against God. He said, “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mountain of the assembly of the gods, in the farthest north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most high.”

Satan had ambitions rooted in pride and glory. He wanted to be above God and he wanted God’s power.

In the book of Revelations 12:7 it is said that there was a War in Heaven and Michael and his angels fought against the dragon who was Satan (dragon is symbolic, as are all references to him as some sort of other being).

So this brings up an interesting issue: When did all this happen? Who was involved in this War in Heaven?

The reality is that this all happened before we were born. You and I were all there in his pre-mortal realm as we are all children of Heavenly parents. Satan was one of those children. Satan was chosen to do great things and had been given great power to accomplish those things, but he decided that he wanted more and even sought for the throne of God.

Jesus Christ was also one of those children and in fact, Scripture states that he was the firstborn of all of those children of God. Heavenly Father needed a savior to redeem mankind and take upon himself all of our sins. Heavenly Father presented Jesus to all of us as His choice for who would be our Redeemer. LUCIFER became very jealous of this. He was jealous of the love shown to him by the Father. He wanted the glory that would come from doing such an amazing feat, but he did not have the love of his other brothers and sisters that would be needed to be able to perform it. He tried to devise another plan, a plan where everyone would not have to choose and everyone would make it back to live with our father in heaven again.

You see, God’s plan requires that we have agency or the freedom to choose and in order to do this, we would not have the memory of living with God and what it was like. Only in this manner we have total freedom want and what we were like and what we would become. If we could remember what it was like to live with God that would take away our freedom so a veil of forgetfulness was placed on our minds to cause us to be in that position of real choice.

This would cause all kinds of problems. We would have war, disease, cheating, lying, adultery, theft and all the ills of mankind. Life would be unfair and justice seem unattainable. People would search for power and money and the lusts of the flesh and because of those choices and because nothing that is sinful in any degree cannot live in God’s presence, we would either need to pay for the sins ourselves or rely upon the mercy of another who could pay that price. The outcome would be that many would not make it back to live with God again. God would lose many of his children who would choose a different path and accept something lower than what He desired to give them.

Satan’s plan would force everyone to do the right thing. There wouldn’t be any of these ills and life would be much easier, if we could just give him the credit for this great thing he wanted to do.

Although his plan had an appeal it could not come to pass. We cannot live this life and we wouldn’t want to and this brought about the War in Heaven. It was a great debate and discussion back and forth over which plan would be best, and we all had the opportunity to choose. Would we want the opportunity to choose our own future with all the risks that would be a part of that? Who would want someone else to make all the hard decisions for us and miss out on the growth that would come from the difficulties of the other plan.

Apparently one third of all of Heavenly Father’s children chose to follow Satan and his plan. Everyone that followed him was cast out of heaven, unable to progress any further in their eternal quest to become better. They were damned. They were also cast down to this Earth and became our tempters because they did not have physical bodies like we do, nor would they ever.

This great debate and war in heaven over the choice between Satan and Jesus Christ has now moved from the pre-mortal spirit realm to our earthly station. Although the location is different, the discussion remains the same in all the heated arguments back and forth between freedom and force.

Our Father and Our God - JESUS CHRIST

All those who follow Jesus Christ had the opportunity now to come to this earth and gain a physical body. This physical body is one of the most valuable things you will ever have throughout all eternity. This physical body is something that Satan will never have and he tries to use it against us. He tries to have as misuse it and abuse it. He tries to tempt us with the things of the flesh and the pleasures of the world.

And that is why Satan is here on this earth.

There must be opposition in all things for without opposition there could be no growth. Satan and his minions are spirits that runaround this earth trying to persuade us to do wrong, evil and wicked things. God cannot create evil but evil was needed to provide the opposition for that growth, therefore God used the choice that The Devil and his minions have made to act as a mechanism to provide the growth we need.

But all of us on this earth have an eternal future glory and beauty and tremendous potential ahead of us. Satan does not. If we will but choose the right, repent of our sins through the atonement of Jesus Christ we may live with Heavenly Father again.

Joseph Smith taught us that all beings who have physical bodies have power over those that don’t. Satan cannot gain control over us except for what we let him.

And Lucifer will do anything to destroy our future. There is nothing that he will not do try to prevent us from reaching our potential. The only thing he can offer us is misery and so he tries to do everything he can to make misery look good. The Devil is very clever and his influence is very much in the words and thoughts of the people of the world.

I would recommend reading the Screwtape letters by CS Lewis. I would also recommend reading The Bible, The Book of Mormon, the Doctrine & Covenants and The Pearl of Great Price produced by the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints. That last book, The Pearl of Great Price gives us the most clear knowledge regarding Satan’s past and his ability to influence us today than any other book. It is truly a valuable insight into our adversary.

Once we understand exactly who Satan really is and we recognize that he is nothing like all the images portrayed in the multitude of movies over the years, it gives us better ammunition to protect ourselves from his temptations. Yes, Satan is real but so is Jesus Christ and the love of God that is in all of those who seek to do his will.